The magic of reading to babies 4 to 6 months

November 13, 2015

The magic of reading to babies 4 to 6 months

Learning and literacy

As any teacher will tell you, reading is one of the most important things you can do with your child. And as every mum knows, nothing is more delicious than snuggling up with your little one to share a good book. But how young is too young to start? The truth is it's never too early to start sharing books with your baby. Even before your baby begins to respond to the content of the books in obvious ways, she's still taking it all in, enjoying the sound of your voice and the closeness of your bond.

In fact, your baby's first months are among her most formative, and reading will help stimulate your child's vocabulary, imagination and ability to communicate. Research indicates that there is a strong correlation between the number of words an infant hears each day and her verbal intelligence at a later age.

So if you get tired of hearing yourself explain to your wide-eyed infant the finer points of bottle preparation or chattering on about the different kinds of flowers you pass on your way home from your new-mum group, you might want to dive into a few words someone's already written down on paper.

4 to 6 months old

As your baby grows older, you'll want to look for books that will engage her in different ways. Early on, she may be drawn to books with bright colours and sharp contrast. At around three or four months, she begins to develop a sense of herself and how she relates to the world around her: smiling, communicating, reaching out and engaging. She starts exploring the world through touch, so you may want to choose books that are highly tactile or textured, incorporating interesting fabrics, or surfaces that are smooth and bumpy, rough and smooth. Babies this age also respond strongly to sound, so look for books that incorporate elements that crinkle, crunch, jangle, swish, beep or make music. Books that feature photographs or realistic images of every day items also tend to connect with the 4- to 6-month-old crowd, which probably explains why you will find them so well represented on your library or bookstore shelves.

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